Back from the dead: 800,000-year-old plankton - CBS News

Jerrod Ferrari

Published 8:00 pm, Sunday, June 26, 2011

A single-celled alga that went extinct in the North Atlantic Ocean about 800,000 years ago has returned after drifting from the Pacific through the Arctic thanks to melting polar ice. And while its appearance marks the first trans-Arctic migration in modern times, scientists say it signals something potentially bigger.